We returned home from Virginia last night to find several messages from Dr. Lavertu's office on our machine. One was about a PET scan scheduled for this morning. Nick had to be at the hospital for the scan at 7AM and missed his morning class. The scan went well and he was back at school at 9:30. The other messages were about other appointments for this week. On Thursday at 11:30, Nick will have his first appointment with the oncologist, Dr. Omer Koc, at the Ireland Cancer Center. He is lucky that this is just across an alleyway from the Dental School clinic. Also on Thursday, at 2:20, he is scheduled for a CT scan. Dr. Lavertu told us treatment would be chemo and possibly radiation, but hopefully we will know much more about what the next 6 months hold for us after our meeting with Dr. Koc.

The Begining

During the summer of 2004, Nick noticed a lump just above his collarbone. He finally mentioned it to me at the end of October. I encouraged him to see a doctor. On Nov. 5, he saw a doctor at the Student Health Service. She referred him to an Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, whose name was Dr. Lavertu. Nick saw Dr. Lavertu for the first time on Nov. 10. At that time, Dr. Lavertu did a fine needle aspiration and biopsy. He asked us to come in again the following week for the results. On Nov. 16, Nick had his follow up appointment with Dr. Lavertu. He told us that the pathology report said there were "abnormal cells of lymphoid origin," and that is was probably Hodgkin's lymphoma. We had been doing our research and were expecting this diagnosis. Dr. Lavertu scheduled Nick for an excisional biopsy to confirm the diagonis. This was done 3 days later on Nov. 19. While Nick was still in the operating room, Dr. Lavertu came to the waiting room to tell me that it was indeed Hodgkin's. Although we knew it was before, it still hit both of us hard. We went ahead with our planned trip to Virginia for Thanksgiving. We got the final pathology report by email from Dr. Lavertu on Thanksgiving morning: nodular sclerosing Hodgkin's lymphoma. We are lucky that this cancer has an excellent prognosis. We see this as a bump in the road and hopefully in a year or two, we'll be looking back on this time and saying, "Remember when..."